Sharanralee Crownstar
Sharanralee Crownstar is legendary among Harpers. A tall (6-foot-four-inches), slender fighter of (to use Elminster’s words) “quiet grace, great dark eyes, and a magnificent fall of glossy dark brown hair that when unbound usually reaches the backs of her knees,” Sharanralee has a sunny disposition, is gentle of speech and unassuming of manner, and (to quote Storm Silverhand) has “been everywhere, seen everything, and remembers all the back trails and alleys - - and who dwells or lurks along them.” Her knack is to easily befriend everyone she wants to, and make them feel special (a morale-building touch for many young Harpers, many of whom revere her), and her greatest skill is having a perfect, never-failing, apparently-limitless memory: Sharanralee DOES remember every last detail of snatches of conversations she overhears, particular smells, peoples’ faces, tiny items worn or displayed on crowded market tables configuration of the ‘business end’ of a key glanced at momentarily, for instance, and so on. She spent her youth travelling the Realms widely and having many adventures, often in the company of rangers and explorers. She’s always loved maps and seeing new places (and squaring the two, to make maps ever-more-accurate), and has proved herself very useful in guiding travellers or telling folk about navigational details of distant, unfamiliar cities and trade-routes. Her mother, Miralee, was ‘a dark beauty’ from Mintarn (Sharanralee was named for her grandmother, dead for some years before she was born), and her father Taerazaun the head of the proud and wealthy Crownstar merchant-trading family of Athkatla (many Crownstars are now gem-dealers in cities along the Sword Coast from Baldur’s Gate south to the Tashalar). They were slain by caravan-raiders (while travelling outside of Amn, with their daughter left ‘safe’ at home in their Athkatlan mansion) when Sharanralee was young. Her servants and relatives soon conspired to steal much of the Crownstar wealth and discredit Sharanralee (as an impostor, not a true Crownstar, and hence entitled to nothing of the family wealth and houses). When she refused to be thrown out of the Crownstar mansion in Athkatla (or rather, was thrown out several times but kept climbing back in unattended upper-floor windows and trying to resume her life as if she’d never been expelled), attempts were made to murder her. She escaped several such, but when she overheard (from hiding) one of her uncles conspiring with the grooms to have them abduct her, ride her to the mountains, and there take their pleasure of her before slaying her and bringing back her heart and eyes as proof, she decided to run away - - and did so. Harpers took her in, Harpers took her all over the world, and she grew to love the life of adventuring in the wilderness. At some point she gained a small, wearable magic item of some sort that enabled her to alter her looks (including stature and apparent gender), and the disguises this has helped her assume have aided her greatly in Harper work and in travelling to many places without being identified as Sharanralee, or molested as an outlander, a woman, or a non-member of whatever group she’s walking among. She has become a veteran of Harper missions and life in the wilderness, famous among Those Who Harp and a trusted friend, confidant, and agent of Alustriel. She’s also acquired a husband, to whom she’s very happily and passionately married, considerable wealth (on her own; she’s apparently never tried to take any revenge upon her Athkatlan relatives, or gain a single coin of her inheritance ‘back’ from them), and owns several businesses and many properties in Everlund. Category:Humans